Saturday, September 24, 2011

Speckled Vintage

The 'Speckled Vintage' effect is basically gives you a washed out vintage look with speckles. It worked awesome on people and nature shots. Enjoy. :D 

Before:


After:


1. Open your image (I'm using a picture from www.free-celebrity-picture.com) and duplicate it so the original won't be affected. Name this layer 'Work Layer'.
2. Go to Layer - New Fill Layer - Solid Color. Fill with #002157 [a dark blue].
          2a. Set the blend mode of this layer to 'Exclusion' and the opacity to 64%.
3. Go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Photo Filter. Choose the 'Sepia' filter, move the density slider to 70% and make sure 'Preserve Luminosity' is checked.
4. Go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Gradient Map. Make a #381a38-white gradient as shown below.


          4a. Set the blend mode of this layer to 'Screen' and the opacity to 64%.
5. Go to Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Brightness/Contrast. Set the 'Brightness' to -13 and the 'Contrast' to +69.
6. Click on 'Work Layer'. Duplicate it by either going to Layer - Duplicate Layer... or by pressing Ctrl+J on your keyboard. Name this layer 'Speckles' and drag it to the top of the stack.
          6a. Compare your layers palette/panel to the one below.


7. With the 'Speckles' layer selected, go to Filter - Sketch - Reticulation.... Set the 'Density' to 38, the 'Foreground Level' to 24, and the 'Background Level' to 21. Click OK.
8. Select the brush tool [B] and choose a medium sized, soft, white colored brush with an opacity of about 70-75% and go over the face. Then lower the opacity to around 30-35% and go over any other areas on skin where many speckles have clustered.
          8a. Below is my before (top) and after (bottom) regarding 'speckle cleansing'. I went over the face and arm. Click on the thumbnail for a larger preview.



9. Set the 'Speckles' layer to a blend mode of 'Hard Light' and an opacity of 48%.
          9a. Feel free to touch up the 'speckle cleansing' or adjust the opacity.

10. Go listen to the awesome song Every Teardrop is a Waterfall by Coldplay that inspired me to make this tutorial. :)

You can also apply this effect on photos with other subjects besides people. Simply omit step 8 or apply it as needed depending on your photo. Here's an example on a photo from istockphoto:

12 comments:

  1. You do not say what the brush color should be in step 8. Can we assume it is white (#ffffff)?

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  2. Oh, I am so sorry. I will fix it right now, and yes it is #ffffff. :)

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  3. This is a cool technique! Thank you for writing it for others to try out. Good job!

    Su

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  4. Just wanted to add that I have tried this and it turned out really nice! I used a different image, one of cogs close-up, so, following the tut to the letter, I got an almost solid-colored light-green image. The speckles were very prominent though and I liked that. I just wanted it to look more like the original - like old cogs. So, I simply changed the blending mode to 'Soft Light' on the Speckles layer. Looks wonderful!

    By the letter of tutorial-
    http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff181/suruha/Blogs/9911_05_2686_prev-tut1.jpg

    After 'Soft Light' blending mode-
    http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff181/suruha/Blogs/9911_05_2686_prev-tut2.jpg

    Thank you ever so much. I learned a new feature. Playing around with the settings, I see many more possibilities. Cool!

    Su

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  5. I love your result and I am glad that you played around to find a result that you liked.

    It looks awesome. :)

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  6. 3. there is no photo filter inside {layer-new adjustment layer }

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. @sanzipmaskey Are you using Photoshop Elements? If you go to 'Layer' in your toolbar, there will be a dropdown menu. From this menu hover over 'New Adjustment Layer'. This will result in another drop down menu. From this, choose 'Photo Filter'.

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